This is the ultimate in large caliber rifles, it has a 2 gauge or 2 bore caliber.

There are muzzle loading varieties of this gun but if you want to get down to business then the cartridge version is the one to have.

Above: on the left is a giant .700 nitro express cartridge with a massive 1000 grain bullet, this is next to the awesome 2 bore with its 3500 grain solid bronze bullet.

Above are some cartridge cases from several normal  guns compared to the 2 bore. First on the left is the .50 S&W then the Winchester .45-70 followed by the .700 Nitro Express, and finally the super massive 2 bore.

The German company of Schroeder & Hetzendorf make the cartridges for this gun and they are called the S&H 2 Bore Black-powder Express cartridges.  The cartridge is filled with the much more slower burning less volatile black powder as opposed to the more modern faster burning  nitro genus powders. 

The reason for this is that if modern powders were used then the gun would be too dangerous to fire by an individual as the recoil would be 100% more potent and almost guaranteed to smash the shoulder of the firer, regardless of whatever protection was being used.

Below, the muzzle of a 2 bore gun is something to behold, it looks as though it should belong affixed to the side of a battleship !

The size of the bullet this rifle fires is 1.326 inch or 33.68mm in diameter.  The bullet is made of bronze and weighs 3500 grain which is ½lb  or 226.80 grams !!

Even though these bullets are fired from a rifle, the true designation would be more fitting to a similarity of a shotgun rifled slug.  In England these guns are referred to as punt guns in that they use to be fired from a punt boat on a river.

Below as firer wisely uses a rifle stand to steady the heavy gun before firing it.

The velocity of this super massive bullet leaves the barrel at 1500 fps ( most rifle calibers are in excess of 2800 fps ) so they are in effect relatively slow, but this is made up by the massive delivery of energy at the target end, we are talking 17487 ft-lbs of raw energy !

Luckily there is a Youtube video of this behemoth being fired to better illustrate its size, as you can imagine, this gun is not your everyday shooter but more an extreme specialist gun.

Below, out of the rifles on display here the 2 bore stands out a mile.

Whether or not this gun is suitable for hunting big game such as African Antelope or elephant is open to conjecture, as apart from the super recoil, heavy to handle and aim rifle itself, very heavy ammo and incredible expense...these bullets do travel at a slow velocity.  Due to the air drag coefficient with the bullets cross section they slow down dramatically  in flight and therefore the bullet would lack serious penetration qualities.

At the time of writing 20th June 2009, a 2 bore cartridge costs between $80.00 to $85.00 each.  Even hand loading them yourself is a major expense as the empty cartridge cases are $495.00 per pack of 10 ( shipped ) and solid bronze or copper bullets are $295.00 per pack of 10 ( shipped ) which now actually equals $790.00 for 10 rounds of 2 bore ammunition.  Just imagine firing off 50 rounds down the range, it would cost you about four thousand bucks !

Now...are you sure that you still want one?